Standards
How The Care Ledger is made
A daily report on what health care in the US actually costs, researched and drafted with AI and reviewed by an editor before anything is published.
What we cover
Hospital and insurer prices, medical bills, insurance premiums, drug prices, and the price data hospitals and insurers are required to publish. Clinical news and politics without a cost angle are left to others.
How a story is made
- 01
Research
Each morning, four AI research agents read the news since the last edition and the primary documents behind it. Each covers one beat: policy, the market, patients and bills, and research and data. They are told to open the rule, filing, study or court record a story rests on, not to rely on summaries.
- 02
Selection
The lead is the story that most changes, or reveals, what patients, employers or health plans pay, that is new since the last edition, and that can be checked against a primary source. On a slow day we lead with the best story there is and say plainly what it is.
- 03
Checking
Every figure, date, name and quote in a story is checked against a source opened that day. Anything that cannot be confirmed is left out. Every source is listed at the end of the story with a link.
- 04
Review
An editor reads every story before it is published, and can change it, hold it or drop it. Nothing on this site is published automatically.
How we write
Plain, full sentences. Acronyms are spelled out the first time. Every figure says where it came from, earlier figures carry their year, and a proposed rule is never described as final. We describe people who are not public figures by their role, and we do not give medical, legal or insurance advice.
Corrections
If we get something wrong, we fix it on the story and add a note that says what changed and when. Every correction is also listed on the corrections page. To report an error, write to maximus@soro.health.
Who publishes it
The Care Ledger is published by Soro, a company that collects and sells the prices hospitals and insurers are required to publish. Stories do not mention Soro unless the story is about that price data, and then in one factual sentence at most. Soro's own product appears only in panels marked "From the publisher", which sit outside the stories. More about the publisher